Willow Kayne

Kayne was born in Melksham[1] to Toploader's Dancing in the Moonlight.[2] Her sister makes classical music,[3] and her mother, Emma, was a teaching assistant at St Patrick's Catholic Primary School in Corsham,[4] who had previously directed music videos by Erasure and The Prodigy.[5] Willow attended St Patrick's and Wiltshire College & University Centre.[4] When she was fifteen, she temporarily lost the sight in her left eye, and permanently in her right;[6] she had contracted acanthamoeba, which ate three out of four layers of her cornea.[1] At the time, she was interested in a career in graphics, but changed course after listening to her favourite songs while blind and hearing things she had not heard before.[6] She started making music in 2018, after receiving a new computer bundled with GarageBand; she would later make music with a torrented version of Logic Pro. Early tracks were released on SoundCloud.[3]

On 28 April 2021, she released her début single, "Two Seater";[7] the song had been written a year earlier. After being used in a TikTok advert, the song received over 1,000 abusive comments, which Kayne responded to by writing her second single, "I Don't Wanna Know",[8] which she released on 22 July 2021.[9] In September,[3] she won an Ivor Novello Rising Star Award in 2021, along with mentorship from Nile Rodgers,[10] and later that month "Two Seater" turned up on the FIFA 22 soundtrack.[3] On 2 November 2021, she released a third single, "Opinion",[11] which had been written the year before, and about abusive comments she had received.[12] On 1 February 2022, she released the EP Playground Antics, which featured "Two Seater", "I Don't Wanna Know", and "Opinion".[13]

On 5 May 2022, Kayne released the single "Final Notice",[13] a commentary on her experience as a woman in the music industry, which was released alongside a Human Traffic-inspired music video.[5] On 1 July that year, she released another single, "White City",[13] an ode to inequality in White City, London,[14] which featured "Final Notice". On 22 August, she released "Rat Race",[13] which was also about her experiences of living in London,[15] and which featured "White City" and "Final Notice". On 23 September that year, she released the four-track Mr Universe EP,[13] the title track for which featured General Levy and was produced by Toddla T,[16] and which featured "Rat Race", "White City", and "Final Notice".[13]